Text Size

WELCOME TO THE PRO REPORT, where we’re fascinated by the American buzz surrounding England’s future king. What should be on Pro Report’s radar? Make sure it is: rbade@politico.com. Or tweet: @RachaelMBade and follow @POLITICOPro.

TODAY’S TOP NEWS:

1.) IT’S A BOY. Gordon Rayner for The Telegraph: “The future king was born at 4.24pm in St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, with the Duke of Cambridge in attendance. The Duchess of Cambridge gave birth 11 hours after being admitted to the hospital. The newest addition to the Royal family who becomes third in the line to the throne, ahead of Prince Harry, was born naturally … is 8lbs 6oz. … In line with royal tradition, the Duke and Duchess have not yet revealed the baby's name. The Duke of Cambridge was not named for a week after his birth, partly because his parents reportedly disagreed over names. … Baby Cambridge will make his public debut when the Duchess of Cambridge leaves hospital and stands on the same spot where Diana, Princess of Wales was first photographed holding Prince William 31 years ago.” http://bit.ly/161CwLZ

— Time’s Megan Gibson asks — and answers — a solid question: Why does anyone care? After all, it’s not like the royal family really rules Great Britain … http://ti.me/14ywZzW

— A baby bump for the British economy? Depends on whom you ask. Wall Street Journal’s Ben Casselman says, “Don’t bet on it” (http://on.wsj.com/18yG5PS). But between the parties and frantic souvenir-buying, National Journal’s Matt Berman says “it isn't just a global womb-watch. It's also estimated to bring $380 million into the U.K.'s economy.” (http://bit.ly/1dQs6BV) We’ll let them duke it out.

2.) SNOWDEN COULD LEAVE AIRPORT WEDNESDAY. Reuters: “Former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden hopes to be granted papers by Wednesday allowing him to end his month-long stay in the transit area of a Moscow airport and move to the city center, his Russian lawyer said on Monday. … Snowden's bid for temporary asylum in Russia may take up to three months to process, but he can pass through customs based on the initial response to his request.” http://reut.rs/132yuQo

A WEEK IN THE SPOTLIGHT: TRANSPO/HUD FUNDING. The Senate on Tuesday is expected to take a procedural vote on Transportation funding, a few hours after the House Rules Committee meets Monday evening to prep that chamber’s version of the appropriations bill for the floor. The two chambers' funding levels are $10 billion apart ($44 billion v. $54 billion), and as our Kathryn A. Wolfe reports for Pros, it’s unclear whether House Republicans have the votes to pass it after punting — twice.

— From her story: “The Senate bill largely ignores the sequester’s existence and pumps money into housing and transportation programs. The House’s approach is to conform to the sequester’s top-line spending level, largely by squeezing domestic discretionary programs in favor of defense spending — which would mean steep cuts to traditional Democratic priorities such as Amtrak and housing programs. Both approaches are a fantasy. … Even if the Senate’s more robust bill were to be enacted, without a sequester replacement the automatic cuts will slash the bill’s programs anyway. And if the House’s approach were to become law, the sequester ax would eventually fall and slice out all of its padding for defense programs.” http://politico.pro/161kY2E

TOP TALKER: COHEN EXPLAINS STRANGE TWEET. Perhaps a self-imposed Twitter moratorium is in order? Tennessee Democrat Steve Cohen on Sunday caused a Twitter ruckus — again — with this: “Told AfricanAmerican towdriver my week -father -DNA test not father reporter/ attractive fallout.he(not aware of TN9)says,You're BLack! Yo” On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Monday he came out with this defense, transcribed by our Tal Kopan: “It was fun. It was funny. I had a tough night. Here’s what happened: I drive an ‘86 Caddy. A lot of African-Americans drive old cars — a stereotype — a lot of African-Americans drive old cars,” Cohen said, telling the story of his car breaking down and the tow truck driver responding. “I’m having no luck. He drives me, we ditch the car, I come back and I tell him the story. … He goes, ‘Man, you’re black.’ And I took it as a compliment. I hear it in Memphis all the time. My constituents don’t look at me as a white person, they say, ‘You’re one of us.’”

NOTABLE: SENATE MINORITY LEADER GETS A TEA PARTY RIVAL. Matt Bevin, a Louisville businessman, will announce his campaign against Sen. Mitch McConnell Wednesday, The Daily Caller's Alex Pappas reported Monday (story: http://bit.ly/13SnaGC). You know what that means: Don’t expect the Kentucky Republican to come to the center to compromise on any big Senate policy issues over the next year-and-a-half.

GOP SNIPS EPA, ARTS, WILDLIFE PROGRAMS. David Rogers with this spending analysis: “An estimated $1.5 billion in emergency funding is added to meet fire-fighting costs. … But elsewhere the picture is exceptionally bleak. The [EPA] is among those hardest hit, with its annual funding reduced by about a third to $5.5 billion. The much smaller Fish and Wildlife Service is also cut 27 percent below what had been enacted earlier this year. Appropriations for the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities would be virtually cut in half. No funding is provided for the Woodrow Wilson International Center.” http://politi.co/1bWNEyD

TUESDAY’S HEARING OF THE DAY. At 2 p.m. a House Judiciary Committee subpanel on immigration looks at how to grant legal status to the “Dreamers” — kids brought to the U.S. illegally as children. “These children came here through no fault of their own and many of them know no other home than the United States,” said Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) in a statement. “Any successful immigration reform plan must … find a way to fairly deal with those who are currently in the country unlawfully." And here’s subcommittee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.): “Those who are in the country unlawfully are not a homogeneous group. One of the clearest examples is those who were brought here as children who did not knowingly break our laws.”

ALSO ON PRO TODAY —

BLOCKED: N.D. ABORTION BAN. Kyle Cheney with this update: “A federal judge has temporarily blocked a recent North Dakota law that would ban abortions as early as six weeks — the earliest prohibition in the nation — calling the measure ‘clearly unconstitutional’ and a ‘troubling law.’ ‘The United States Supreme Court has unequivocally said that no state may deprive a woman of the choice to terminate her pregnancy at a point prior to viability,’ Judge Daniel Hovland wrote Monday …[T]he North Dakota legislation prohibits abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, often as early as six weeks.” http://politico.pro/12HQjoZ

‘OBAMAPHONE’ BACKER LAUNCHES SUPPORT CAMPAIGN. Here’s Jessica Meyers: “TracFone, a prepaid service provider led by one of the world’s richest men, longs to cut the ‘Obama phone’ line of attacks to save a program for the poor — and its bottom line. The company, controlled by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, has launched a lobbying ground war to promote the controversial phone subsidy initiative known as Lifeline. And in the wake of congressional blasts, the program’s largest participant has found backhanded support from an unlikely coalition of rights groups and industry advocates pushing for the same goal: to spare it.

… TracFone likes to remind that Lifeline started nearly three decades ago under President Ronald Reagan and expanded to wireless service under President George W. Bush.” http://politico.pro/13ZvDzc

Albright: Don’t Forget R2P in Syria. A day before Madeleine Albright speaks at the Holocaust Museum Tuesday about the “Responsibility to Protect” — an international notion that nations have an obligation to protect humanity from genocide, war crimes or ethnic cleansing — the former State Secretary writes in to POLITICO with her thoughts: “Sadly, the promise of R2P has been more noteworthy in the breach than in the honoring of our commitments. The current crisis in Syria, where Basharal-Assad’s regime has declared all-out war on its own people, is the most visible case of our collective failure to protect vulnerable populations from the most serious crimes. Less noticed is the ongoing struggle to protect the many million citizens of Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and other places where political leaders and their allies regularly employ violence against the defenseless. Yet the gap between our words and deeds should not serve as an excuse to scrap the whole R2P enterprise…” Her op-ed with Richard S. Williamson, former U.S. envoy to Sudan, is here: http://politico.pro/1aEJMRe

MCCAIN RESURRECTS DOLLAR COIN PUSH. At a joint-luncheon for the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste and the Dollar Coin Alliance Monday, Sen. John McCain said he’d use upcoming legislation to try to tack on a policy rider to swap the flimsy George Washington green with a sturdy coin to save Uncle Sam some dough. My newsroom cube neighbor Kevin Cirilli reports that the Arizona Republican called it one of the “least painful ways of at least taking a significant step that could save billions and billions of dollars.” He pushed the idea last year, too.

— Potential $13.8 billion in savings. Right on time, the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Aaron Klein, former chief economist for the Senate Banking Committee and former deputy assistant Treasury secretary, published a study Monday saying the currency swap could save $13.8 billion — more than three times what the GAO estimated. http://bit.ly/14zvgKL

EXPERT BEMOANS PILL OVERSIGHT. Or, perhaps, the lack of it. Today, Brett Norman of Pro Health looks at one doctor’s crusade against the lack of FDA regulation of dietary supplements — and the blind eye Congress gives it. “Paul Offit … said Monday that the dietary supplement industry has become so big and powerful that lawmakers won’t take any steps toward meaningful regulation. And until that changes, the public will go on believing in many treatments that at best don’t work. They can be positively harmful, too … ‘If you want to see why it’s not going to happen, just watch [Sen.] Orrin Hatch eat lunch,’ says Offit ... ‘He lines up pill after pill …’ Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who has hailed bee pollen as an alternative treatment for allergies, led the effort to establish the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the NIH in the 1990s. … The FDA has the authority to review claims made on the labels of dietary supplements … but the agency rarely focuses its limited resources on the industry.”

— The money behind the support. So just how much did the nutrition and dietary supplement industry give its supporters? According to OpenSecrets.org, the industry gave $617,800 to congressional candidates for the 2012 election cycle; $359,000 to incumbents including these top recipients: 1.) Hatch with $59,700. 2.) Harkin with $18,050. 3.) Rep. Xavier Becerra with $20,640. 4.) Sen. John Cornyn with $17,500. 5.) Rep. Jason Chaffetz with $17,090.

AFP TARGETS 10 DEMOCRATS ON OBAMACARE DELAY. Paige Winfield Cunningham: “Americans for Prosperity is targeting 10 swing-district Democrats in online ads for how they voted last week on delaying Obamacare. Six of the members are among the 22 Democrats who voted for delaying both the law’s employer mandate to offer coverage and the individual mandate to buy it.” They are: Reps. Ron Barber of Arizona, Pete Gallego of Texas, Joe Garcia of Florida, Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona, Patrick Murphy of Florida and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. http://politico.pro/132JjSH

JUST LAUNCHED — DOCUMENT DRAWER: See what the power players are reading with POLITICO Pro's new feature, Document Drawer. Document Drawer provides Pros with the latest policy documents at their fingertips. Pros can search, view and download the latest congressional correspondence, court filings, reports and more, quickly and easily. Check it out! http://politico.pro/13KLgKK

ON TAP TUESDAY: Vice President Joe Biden plays diplomat in India … In the afternoon the White House honors the Louisville Cardinals men's basketball team for its 2013 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship. … At 8 a.m. at the Newseum, National Journal brings in Charlie Cook of the Cook Political Report give some early thoughts on 2016 presidential hopefuls.

— On the Hill: At 10 a.m., Senate HELP considers Kent Yoshiho Hirozawa and Nancy Jean Schiffer to be a members of the National Labor Relations Board. ... At 10 a.m., CFTC Commissioners Scott O'Malia and Mark Wetjen testify before the House Agriculture Committee on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s future while a House Education and the Workforce subcommittee looks at the workplace effects of the employer mandate delay. … At the same time, the House Energy and Commerce Committee begins the first of a series of hearings on the renewable fuel standard slated for this week. … At 2:30 p.m., the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a full hearing on legislation to “create a partnership between states that produce energy onshore and offshore for the country with the federal government.”

POLICY AROUND THE WEB:

— Tabassum Zakaria of Reuters has an exclusive on the possibility of the U.S. arming Syria: http://reut.rs/14zNbRl